April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer
said President Barack Obama has the advantage for re-election
and should campaign on his economic record, not as a populist.

“If you went to Vegas today, it’d be 60-40 for Obama,”
Schweitzer said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s
“Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “The
economy’s on the mend. That’s probably the most important
thing.”

Schweitzer, a Democrat, said Obama should tout his
accomplishments in working with the financial community to
restore the economy and the automobile companies rather than
campaign against the rich and powerful.

“He has demonstrated that he can work with banks. And,
frankly, without the actions of Obama, we wouldn’t be making
cars, and now General Motors is the No. 1 car manufacturer,”
Schweitzer said. “You shouldn’t run from that kind of a
record.”

He also predicted that Senator Jon Tester, a Montana
Democrat with a reputation as an economic populist, will win his
re-election contest in November.

Schweitzer, 56, said he knows and likes the presumptive
Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, while questioning
his political beliefs.

‘Nice Man’

“I don’t know what he is,” Schweitzer said. “I can tell
you he’s a nice man.”

He said Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, was the
leader of a party that is more ideological today than under
either President Ronald Reagan or then-Senator Barry Goldwater,
the 1964 Republican presidential nominee.

Today’s Republicans are “far right of the Reagan
Republican Party,” Schweitzer said. “And I don’t think
Goldwater would even recognize this Republican Party.”

Schweitzer, whose state would host a section of the
Keystone XL pipeline bringing oil from Canada, said Republicans
won’t succeed in making a campaign issue out of Obama’s failure
to approve the project.

He said Obama can’t act until the states do, and
Republican-led Nebraska has yet to grant a permit to TransCanada
Corp. Obama in January rejected a permit, saying a deadline set
by congressional Republicans didn’t provide enough time to study
the project.

Pipeline Issue ‘Fabricated’

“As soon as there’s an actual route, then TransCanada is
going to be able to apply to the State Department,” Schweitzer
said. Republicans have “fabricated an issue in Washington,
D.C., because Congress has nothing to do with this, and
TransCanada doesn’t even have an active application before the
State Department until they have a route across Nebraska.”

Asked about Chinese purchases of energy companies,
Schweitzer said he’d welcome Chinese investment in his state.

A Russian company that owns “the only platinum and
palladium in the Western Hemisphere” is employing Montanans, he
said. “If foreign companies want to invest their money in
Montana and hire Montanans to work there, I’m good with it.”

Schweitzer, a supporter of gun-owners’ rights, defended his
state’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows residents to use
deadly force if they feel threatened. A similar law in Florida
has been under scrutiny following the killing of an unarmed
teenager, Trayvon Martin. The shooter, George Zimmerman, claimed
self-defense under the law, which has been championed by a
corporate-funded policy group, the American Legislative Exchange
Council.

‘Standing Your Ground’

“Standing your ground is not chasing somebody down the
street and shooting them,” Schweitzer said. The gun issue “is
not just about hunting. The framers of our Constitution
understood that every individual ought to have a right to carry
a weapon, to defend themselves, not just from some other
individual, but against tyranny.”

Montana last voted Democratic in a presidential election in
1992 when Bill Clinton carried the state, and Schweitzer said it
will be difficult for Obama to win this time.

“If he wins 46 states, Montana will be one of them,”
Schweitzer said. “If he only wins 42 states, then Montana won’t
be one of them.”

Still, Tester should win re-election regardless of the
outcome of the presidential race, Schweitzer said. Tester, one
of the Democratic incumbents Republicans have targeted in their
effort to win control of the Senate, is in a dead heat with his
Republican opponent, U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg.